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ADVICE

The good times, bad times and changin’ times

Posted:
Saturday, September 1, 2012 12:05 am

It’s no surprise the late Steve Jobs’ favorite music was written and performed by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. I just finished his biography and it was as compelling a book as “Atlas Shrugged.”

Anyway, about three months ago I started a column about the 1964 Bob Dylan song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” An anthem for those times and these times. Bob Dylan can write his soul – and touch yours. The times are changing. But for one reason or another I set the column aside.

As I was reading the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs biography (a book I could NOT put down), I got goosebumps when Jobs got fired from Apple after a decade of it being his creation and child. Devastated, he went home and played the second verse of “The Times They Are a-Changin.’ ” over and over:

Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon

For the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who

That it’s namin’

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin’.

I just sat there stunned. The song, one of Jobs’ favorites, actually predicted his return, and arguably one of the greatest business comebacks of all time. And the timing of my column. Further proof (as if you needed it) there are no coincidences.

The most chilling of these noncoincidences is that my set-aside writing already contained Apple examples of how the world is changed.

So – here are my original thoughts and the added thoughts since I read the Jobs book:

When Dylan wrote about changing times in 1964, it was about societal change. The politics, civil rights, rebellion of kids, music and a new generation of thought and expression.

The same holds true today, almost 50 years later. It brings to mind the French novelist Alphonse Karr’s quote, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

The T-shirt has been the same since the ’50s. What keeps it popular is the design printed on the front and back. Millions of shirts are sold each year because someone wants the design printed on it.

The picture I want to present to you is the BIG PICTURE of change. Not your sales plan, or your quota, or your boss or your compensation plan – what I’m offering are life changes that go way beyond sales and race for dollars.

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